Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48302 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-09-10
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Classical, DVD-Video, PAL
• Original language: Italian
• Subtitled in: Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 130 minutes

Synopsis
A performance of the Donizetti opera DON PASQUALE. Features Juan Diego Florez and Ruggero Raimondi.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful opera, shame about the cast
This is Donizetti at his best. This comic opera is full of exquisitely lovely melodies and harmonies. Unfortunately, this production is marred by almost uniformly dreadful singing. The one talented artist here is the tenor Juan Diego Florez, who has great purity and sweetness of tone to his voice and the power and technique necessary to be a truly excellent singer. Ruggero Raimondi, as Don Pasquale, can barely be heard above the orchestra and sounds more like he's shouting than singing. The remaining 2 members of the cast, playing Dr Malatesta and Norina respectively, have far too much vibrato to make hearing them anything but painful. Norina's coloratura, in particular, is dreadfully slurred. Instead of this I would recommend buying Florez' bel canto album "Una Furtiva Lagrima", which includes 2 arias from this opera.

Juan Diego Florez
This Opera is wonderful, This is the first time I have seen Oliver Widmer, and was very impressed. The sound quality of this DVD is very poor and I therefore do not think you can hear the quality of the singers to their best ability. It goes without saying the Juan Diego is spectacular. I would not recommend this particular recording simply because of the poor sound quality. the stage set was imaginative, and some lovely comic moments too.